6 Preface. 



Myatt, Rivers, Nicholson, and Ingram, in England ; 

 De Jonghe in Belgium; Dr. Nicaise (now no more), 

 Gloede, Robine, Pelvilain, Boisselot, and others, in 

 France ; Burr, Prince, Scott, Fuller, Read, Durand, 

 Downer, Boyden, Wilder, and many others, at home, 

 have given us a host of varieties, some of them so good 

 that we are embarrassed in choosing amid such pro- 

 fusion. 



Many of these, to be sure, do not rise above a certain 

 grade of goodness ; but once in a while one comes that 

 towers above its fellows, and stands alone in its pecu- 

 liar place. Such berries are the Hovey, La Constante, 

 the British Queen, and our great recent acquisition, the 

 President Wilder. 



The hope of drawing prizes like these keeps experi- 

 menters busy with their lotteries of seedlings. The 

 number of amateurs at work, the pride they take in 

 their own results, the interest they feel in their neigh- 

 bors' success, and the broad acres cultivated with straw- 

 berries, to supply the ever-greedy markets of our cities, 

 are all proofs of the deep hold the strawberry has upon 

 the attention of tens of thousands of intelligent culti- 

 vators in this country. 



In the hope that one in a thousand of these may feel 

 kindly disposed towards a new strawberry manual, I have 

 written this little treatise. 



I intended to preface it with a chapter on the botan- 

 ical relations of the strawberry, and to discuss the ques- 

 tion of the number of species, &c. ; but finding the matter 

 so much confused, and learning from the highest botan- 

 ical authority in the country (whose kindness to me I 



